


Stick and Poke

by insensible



Series: If only, but also [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Airport rentals, Art Theft, Arthur spent some time on the streets a long time ago, Arthur was an Army brat, BAMF Arthur, BDSM, Commitment, Compulsive rescuing, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Eames is extremely posh, Edgeplay, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extremely capable sadist Arthur, Hand Jobs, I'm just making all this up now, M/M, Ok that's enough probably, Porn I mean it's all porn towards the end apart from the bit about ducks in Reykjavik tbh, Porn with Feelings, Post-Inception, Restraints, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Shower but no shower sex, Sneaky CBT, Stubble Burn, Switch Arthur, Tattoos, Unconventional uses for alcohol, Workaholic Arthur, criminals in love, switch eames, turnabout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:15:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24679102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insensible/pseuds/insensible
Summary: When he’s done, Arthur licks his fingers, leans forward, pulls a folded piece of paper from his jeans back pocket and hands it across the table to Eames.“Could you do this, only better?” he says.The first thing Eames thinks as he takes the paper is: 20lb uncoated bond.The second thing: Oh, Arthur.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Series: If only, but also [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1822282
Comments: 28
Kudos: 115





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm having so much fun writing these it scares me

Day three, post-inception, and Eames is far from happy. Arthur is barely speaking, hardly eating, and the adrenalin-fuelled celebratory sex marathon Eames had expected hasn’t happened, despite early, very promising, signs. Back in baggage claim, Arthur’s face lit with unholy satisfaction as he followed Eames into the restroom, backed him up into a cubicle, grabbed him forcefully, kissed him savagely and triumphantly.

“Indeed,” whispered Eames, settling both hands on Arthur’s narrow hips, pushing him carefully away. “We’re proper criminal heroes now. Let’s just get ourselves somewhere quieter.”

They picked up a gray rental Corolla, loaded it up in practiced silence and Arthur drove them north on 405 under smoggy evening sun, swung a right onto Ventura, switched the plates in a Studio City alley at dusk, then turned back west to cut slow through Sherman Oaks to a one-storey safehouse in Van Nuys. En route, Arthur’s mood had deteriorated into brooding, immovable silence.

“Ah, well. I was hoping for the Marmont, but needs must,” Eames had said brightly, as Arthur swung the Toyota into the double garage. “Is there a pool?”

There is no pool. There is a small backyard heaped with overgrown bougainvillea, an upended lawn chair, and an untrimmed palm tree. The house is the colour of an unripe orange, has two bedrooms, an open plan living space, and a surprisingly sophisticated security system. There are ceiling fans, a lot of honey-coloured wood, and the bath suite is original avocado. Eames can live with that. What he can’t live with, it turns out, is Arthur in this state. He’s been sitting at the living room table for two days straight, living off pints of bad coffee and his horrible cigarettes.

It was to be expected, he supposes. Somnacin-induced dreams linger longer in the memory than natural ones, but details inevitably fade with time, which means that after every job, one of Arthur’s responsibilities is to sit over a stack of legal pads and write down everything he can remember. Longhand, he has always maintained, helps with recall. He reads his notes through when he’s done, memorises and burns them. Eames has already told him his memories: avalanches, snowmobiles, absurd manouvers he’d stolen from Bond movies, a paper windmill, Saito bleeding out on the floor. And he’d waxed quite lyrical to Arthur about the depth, the sheer depth of that beautiful moment when he knew that inception had taken and they could get the hell out of there.

Cobb has gone back to his kids, Ariadne will be over—Eames glances at his watch— Newfoundland. A lot of what happened down there will be missing from Arthur’s report. The worst thing is, considering the lie of the land, Eames suspects that the problem here isn’t what’s missing. It’s that Arthur isn’t sure why he is doing this at all.

*

All afternoon Eames has been pretending to read a Tom Clancy paperback, lying along the sofa with his head propped against one arm. The strips of evening sun filtering through the blinds have slid right across the tabletop and moved high up the wall, Arthur hasn’t written a word for over an hour, and Eames decides he has had enough, and Arthur has too. He gets up, walks over to stand behind his chair. The sandwich Eames had made him for lunch is dry and still untouched, cheese sweating unpleasantly along one exposed edge. 

“Nearly done,” Arthur says, by way of polite dismissal.

“That, Arthur, is what I’m afraid of.” He puts his hand over Arthur’s where it rests on the table and pulls at it, coaxes him up out of his seat.

“Come on, love,” he says, gently. And Arthur goes with him. Not entirely willingly, more because he doesn’t have the energy to refuse. Eames leads him into the bathroom, turns the shower on full, then kneels on the tiles to unlace and remove Arthur’s shoes, wincing as ghost bruises from his dream give him that familiar sensation of living two lives, inhabiting two bodies at once. He peels off both thin socks, reaches up to his belt—Arthur puts a hand over his, warningly. “It’s not about that,” says Eames, agreeably, and Arthur takes his hand away, allowing Eames to unbuckle the belt, ease it apart, unbutton his fly, tug at his waistband, then drag down his pants until Arthur steps out of each leg in turn, allowing Eames to run a hand down the tense muscles of the back of each of his thighs and calves. Arthur is getting with the program now, shrugging himself out of his shirt, pulling down and kicking off his briefs. He stands naked, blinking slowly, watching Eames strip and walk into the shower. The water is hot, perfect. He extends a hand toward Arthur.

“Let’s get you clean,” he says.

Arthur freezes on the other side of the door, toes pale on the floor. It’s as if he’s just realised what is happening.

“I already showered.”

“ _Arthur._ ” he says, with an edge, and Arthur obeys, takes his hand, steps forward sluggishly into the spray.

Eames soaps up a flannel, begins to softly scrub at Arthur’s skin. This has nothing to do with external dirt: Arthur is fastidiously clean. It takes several minutes of Eames’ administrations before Arthur starts to thaw. His shoulders relax, he sags back against each sweep of soap and cotton, and then his defences crumble suddenly and entirely. He’s leaning back with his whole weight against Eames, his head down, chin to sternum, watching Eames press his thumb softly and firmly down the length of his upturned forearm to his wrist before linking their fingers together, before curling his other arm around Arthur’s ribcage and drawing him more firmly against his chest. Everything is steam and the air is full of it, both of them breathing it in and out through half-open mouths, the room outside so obscured by it that all that exists is the shower cubicle and their bodies inside it, and Arthur begins to shiver peculiarly, something more like a bitten-off jerk than a shiver, and there’s so much water running over his skin that it takes Eames longer than he should to realise he is crying.

Eames has no idea how long they stay like that: long enough that the water begins to chill. When Eames turns it off he kicks away the guilt over how long it’s been running— _fucking California_ —dries his Arthur, wraps him in a robe, dries himself and pulls on his clothes, then takes them both to the kitchen table, where it takes a half a bottle of cheap bourbon and the full force of Eames’ patient attention to get Arthur to speak at all.

First come the expected self-recriminations—“I fucked up. I should have _known_ ,” a confession that Eames has decided to engage with minimally. Not only is it merely the first level of Arthur’s considerable distress, it is also unfortunately and unarguably true.

Eames starts talking through what happened in the first two levels, mostly the second. It’s less of an emotional minefield, but needs vigilance all the same. Despite his feelings on the matter—Eames wants to yell them from the rooftops—it would be counterproductive to shower Arthur with praise for his magnificently improvised kick. Talking together about their shared recent dreamspace is important, thinks Eames, because it reminds Arthur he wasn’t there alone. Eames knows enough about Arthur’s past now to understand why he gravitates towards roles where everyone relies on him and no-one will ever thank him, but that doesn’t stop the ache blooming in his chest whenever he sees that Arthur is distressed and not quite able to understand why.

He knows why this time.

He keeps it as casual as possible.

“I’m sorry about Cobb,” he murmurs, filling both their glasses again, and when he raises his eyes Arthur’s face is _stricken,_ as if he hadn’t expected him to actually say it out loud.

“Well,” he says, after a while. “‘I’ll get over it.”

And that is all Eames gets.

Arthur’s reticence is fair enough. Eames knows Arthur knows how much he dislikes Cobb, a dislike that isn’t simply founded on how Arthur dumped him last year to go mother-hen the murderer (Eames reckons Cobb did it, odds of 90:1). Of course Cobb has qualities: he’s always fielded the best, most lucrative jobs, has undeniable talent, and an impressive ability to persuade anyone within six feet of him of almost anything. (Eames is immune: game, as they say, always recognises game). But the man has always put him on edge. He’s never entirely trusted him, certainly not with Arthur’s well-being, and talking with him’s the conversational equivalent of rubbing your fingers through a pile of rockwool: soft-seeming, apparently harmless, but with unpleasant and long-lasting repercussions. Cobb, thinks Eames, is bad for one’s health.

He couldn’t give a toss Cobb screwed the team. That would be hypocrisy of the worst order. They made it through; their inception took; they’re going to be very, very rich. But betraying _Arthur?_ That will not be forgiven. Right now Eames would quite like to kill Cobb, or at the very least break that smug face of his. He’s going to get some food into Arthur, persuade him to sleep, and tomorrow, he will use every ounce of charm he possesses to gentle Arthur back into the sun.


	2. Chapter 2

Arthur falls asleep instantly, almost gratefully. Eames has more trouble, and it’s not jetlag. His fingers still throb with frostbite, the skin around his eyes stings, and the palm tree fronds slapping in the wind outside remind him unpleasantly of a rifle fusillade. Arthur’s sprawled on one side, right hand under his pillow where his knife is, snoring gently, which makes things easier and harder all at once. Eames touches the possessive tenderness he feels at the sight, tests it, tries to tell himself Arthur will take its weight, and worries agonisingly that he will not. It takes three hours for sleep to claim him. Of course he does not dream.

He wakes at six to the familiar sound of Arthur stripping his Glock on the living room table, and this development is sufficiently encouraging for him to be able to fall straight back to sleep. Later he pads into the kitchen wearing sweats and a mis-buttoned dress shirt, the first two things he dragged from his suitcase. Arthur cocks an eyebrow at his sartorial choices, shakes his head, lets his mouth tighten into a wry smile. He’s recovered magnificently, seems frankly cheerful, and Eames is relieved because he’s incapable of thinking about anything much more taxing right now than finding coffee.

Arthur’s made a pot of Folgers’ finest, and he’s attacking the last quarter of the pancake on his plate with relish. A packet of mix stands open on the side. His jaw is dark with stubble and he’s dressed down for the neighbourhood in a white tee and blue jeans that hang from his hips in a manner that Eames considers genuinely obscene.

When he’s done eating, Arthur licks his fingers, leans forward, pulls a folded piece of paper from his jeans back pocket and hands it across the table to Eames.

“Could you do this, only better?” he says.

The first thing Eames thinks as he takes the paper is: _20lb uncoated bond_.

The second thing: _Oh, Arthur._

It’s tiny, done in ink. A very simple line drawing of a fish with a forked tail, hooked by the mouth. From the hook the fishing line rises up and back, curling into three loops before breaking into dots and disappearing.It’s not a good drawing. It looks like a child made it. Eames is utterly disarmed and thoroughly charmed by how bad it is.

“Course. What’s it for? Another job?” He glances up.

Arthur is wearing his _Eames, what is wrong with you_ face _._

“Us,” he says.

Eames looks at it again.

“Ah,” he says. 

*

It’s a terrible pun, and the three loops-for-three-levels is not much better, but Eames is full of glee that Arthur would even consider a matched commemorative tattoo, let alone suggest one. Apart from his scars and a smattering of moles he’s absolutely pristine, and after all the shit he’s given Eames about identifying marks, Eames had never imagined he’d countenance ink.

“This is _absurdly_ romantic,” he says.

Arthur rolls his eyes, looks a little pleased with himself.

“I know the theory,” says Arthur. “You know I’m a quick study. You do me first, so I can see. We can improvise kit. There’s needles in the medkit, isopropyl. I have ink.” 

He wants his tiny tattoo on the skin between his heel and inside right ankle.

“Going to hurt, there,” says Eames.

“Not like having your knees shot out,” says Arthur.

Arthur tells him he wants it there because it won’t be visible, and because he can watch Eames do it, and there’s some other reason, something vague to do with him fucking up; there’s mention of an Achilles heel and Eames is definitely not going to engage with that in case he’s the heel in question. But the thought of Arthur wanting to watch Eames work on his skin as if Arthur were his own, priceless forgery? It pushes so many of Eames' buttons he feels he might be going ever so slightly insane _._

“It will be my pleasure,” he says. “But I’m not going to redraw it.”

“Why?”

“Perfect as it is.”

Arthur frowns.

“I mean it,” he says.

* 

Eames doesn’t give a shit about the issue of visibility. He’s wreathed in ink already, and he wants, _oh_ he wants this. “Left inner thigh, for mine,” he says, lasciviously. “So you can see it when you’re busy. Also, it’ll likely be quite hard for me to keep still while you do it, so, you will probably have to restrain me.” He drifts into a reverie, imagining the look of focused concentration on Arthur’s face while he works. “Also, Arthur,” he says, “I should warn you, I’m going to be very, very aroused.”

“I expect you will,” says Arthur, taking back the picture and tucking it into his pocket. Well, yes. Arthur is masochistic as all hell when he’s aroused and in the mood, eats up hurt like candy—but pain isn’t his thing the way it is for Eames. Eames is different. Eames, Arthur can drop right out of the gate with nothing more than one slowly vicious pinch. “It’s because you didn’t have the misfortune of attending an English public school”, he’d told Arthur, when they were still exploring each other’s wants and limits, back when he could talk lightly of upbringings, before he learned the sordid details of Arthur’s childhood as an Army brat. “It was Colditz,” he’d added, “with the added torture of maths.”

It hadn’t just been corporal punishment and freezing showers, for Eames, but a creditable criminal education. Eames is not proud of the coldness and brutality it has left in him, and is very careful to keep those things tucked well out of sight. On the upside, it has also given him very many non-academic skills, an extremely healthy aversion to authority, a penchant for slightly-built brunets, and a proper hunger for pain. Sharper the better. Hands and paddles and floggers are good, for Eames. Crops are an improvement on those, and when the infrequent need grips him, he’s all over a singletail, or was. Knives and the judicious application of sterilised needles—those are best. Arthur knows all this.

It’s all relevant.

Stick and poke.

Arthur is a fucking genius, decides Eames. This is the best idea he has ever had.

*

Arthur is concerned that Eames doesn't understand what the tattoo truly means, but he’s too uncertain of his ground to raise the issue. The shameful episode in the shower last night was the first time he’d cried since Mal died, and he knows the pain under his ribs from that won’t shift anytime soon.

He’s not lying to Eames. The drawing commemorates inception. But the hooked fish isn’t only Fischer, and it is Eames on the other end of his line. _He’s not a weakness_ , Arthur has been telling himself for years, believing exactly the reverse. But something had happened as he bent over Eames on the carpet down there; watching him slip under, he felt the truth of it. Eames is _not_ his weakness. What Eames is, has somehow become, is his necessary strength. What got him through the rest of that madness, what inspired that C4 lift-shaft kick: none of that was saving the job. All of it was Eames. And the truth of _that_ is still unrolling inside him, and since last night he has felt the exhausting relief of knowing that nothing can be done to make it stop.

He’s cross-legged on the bed in the bright back room, one foot held out a little in front, turned on its side. Eames has laid a hot, wet flannel over his ankle and there’s an odd animal warmth to its sodden weight. It’s a good feeling. Like it’s holding him there.Eames peels it away. He applies a dab of foam to Arthur’s skin, brushes it on and around the area, then uses his old safety razor, breath-gentle, to shave away the hair. There wasn’t much, if any, and Arthur suspects this part of the performance is unnecessary, but he is enjoying it.

“So now I’ll just clean this up,” says Eames, wiping away the residue, dabbing wetly with a paper towel, then looks up at Arthur, tilts his head a fraction. “Maybe I should shave your face, too. You look like someone fallen on hard times.”

“No. You shouldn’t, and I don’t. Do you sterilize it next?”

“No Arthur. What’s next is recreating your bewitching art.”

“Do you want the … “

“I remember it just fine.”

He feels the scratch of a pen tip over the thin skin there, and the sensation catches in his throat. That place is so close to the bone, in a lot of different ways. He thinks of hooks, tells himself not all of them are barbed. Some are stays. Some hold things down that otherwise would drift away.

It doesn’t take long. Eames is capping up his blue sharpie, and Arthur leans down to see. It is, as Eames predicted, exactly like his own drawing. It’s so like it that for a moment Arthur feels he’s in a dream, is sure he must have drawn this on himself. Eames wets a swab with alcohol, blots away the excess ink.

The rapid evaporation drags heat from his skin. Arthur shivers.

“Blue so I can see what I’m doing. Arthur, is this still ok … “

“I’m good.”

“…We don’t have to.”

“We do.”

Eames purses his lips.

“I’m glad you’re sure,” he says, sterilising the needle with Arthur’s lighter.

It does hurt. But its a kind of hurt quite outside of Arthur’s experience. He spends a while trying to place it. It’s not like an injury, it’s not sexual at all, it’s not anything he can describe. If he had to, maybe a wound being sutured. The feeling is very far away, but extraordinarily intimate. Every tiny, flaring point of pain clicks together after a while into something hot and restless that isn’t limited to the square inch and a half where Eames is working. He’s dipping the needle into the ink every few seconds, bringing it back to pierce Arthur’s skin. Arthur watches him wipe away the excess ink, gently and attentively. Eames is good at this, Arthur thinks. If you want a homemade tattoo, choose a lover who is also a forger with a handy sideline in field medicine. 

It takes a surprisingly long time, but Arthur keeps absolutely still, even when the urge to move his foot becomes almost overpowering. There’s no blood. His whole leg feels numb, now, but somehow Arthur has developed an eerie sense of exactly how deep the needle's point dips each time, and he’s wondering about the molecules of ink, how they’re going to be incorporated in his skin for as long as he has skin, and how strange it is that his body should welcome them like that. Finally Eames is wiping him down with more alcohol, and Arthur hears him exhale. Job done. 

“There you are, love. Happy?”

He peers down.

It’s so small, so absurd. He loves it to distraction. He nods, gravely.“Eames … I need…”

“One second,” says Eames, unpeeling a dressing, taping it over the spot. “And easy, now. You’re full of endorphins, even if it doesn’t feel like it. I’m here. I’m here, Arthur. What do you need?”

“Eames, you know this…” he gestures at his ankle, clears his throat, runs a hand over his hair, tries again. “It isn’t just about the job.”

Eames shifts up, takes Arthur’s face in his hands, strokes his thumbs down his cheeks. There’s ink all over them, and Arthur sees Eames’ very serious grey eyes track away from his own for a moment, and the muscles at their corners contract, which means the ink must be now all over his face too, that it was an accident, but that Eames is very into it.

“Of course I know. We’re either side of the same line, Arthur.” And he kisses him.


	3. Chapter 3

At three in the afternoon they’re at a table outside the In’n’Out on Balboa, sitting beneath a red plastic parasol. A hot wind is blowing dust and litter about the parking lot. Arthur’s been telling him about the continuing fallout from the Cobol fiasco, which may, he says, involve calling in favours, of which Arthur is owed many, from people Eames wouldn’t choose to deal with in a million years. How Arthur continues to be alive, dealing with the people he routinely deals with, is a profound mystery.

They’ve said nothing for a while. Eames is long done with his very late lunch. Arthur is not. There’s salt all over his lips and fingers and he’s still lifting fries to his mouth because he is the world’s slowest eater, no matter how hungry he is. Eames is a little bored. He’s trying to attract Arthur’s attention by stretching. He’s wearing a too-tight Lakers vest he found balled up at the bottom of the bedroom closet and immediately put on. He told Arthur that if he insisted on going out for food dressed like someone from “the creative industries” (finger flexion) then it would be best if he played Arthur’s “gym rat asshole hookup—good cover, trust me,” but mostly he wanted to wear it because he knew how much it would offend Arthur’s aesthetic sensibilities. It does. It _really_ does.

Eames links his hands behind his head and lets out an exaggerated, fake yawn as the fabric stretches tight across his chest. When he sees Arthur is glaring darkly at him from under his baseball cap, his mouth full, Eames swings his legs from side to side in happy triumph and as he does so, things brush other things and he winces.

Arthur, the bastard, smirks.

*

After that first brush against his mouth, Eames had bitten very gently at Arthur’s lower lip until Arthur sighed and they felt their way into a deeper kiss. Arthur smelled of hot cotton, cheap soap, a suspicion of cigarettes. When Arthur shifted up to get closer, he fell awkwardly to one side, leg numbed by long disuse. Eames caught him, helped him round until he was kneeling facing him. He’d raised his hands to Eames’ face, then, positioned them in exactly the same places Eames’s hands were on his, the tips of his little fingers dwelling in the small hollows below Eames’ ears, his thumbs flat and soft against his cheekbones, and reinitiated the kiss. It was gentle, still, but Eames heard the tiniest sound in Arthur’s throat, low and hungry.

“Arthur,” he ventured, worried about raising the stakes. “It’s a lot. We can just…” 

“Eames,” Arthur said, simply, “make me come”.

He turned, sat himself down between Eames’ open legs, leaned back, drifted one upflung arm around Eames’ neck, then took hold of Eames’ right wrist, held it up to his mouth, and worked on his palm and fingers with a slow, filthy tongue. After Eames had eased his jeans down to his knees and taken hold of him, he’d whispered, “do it like I’m you, work my cock like it’s yours,” and _well_ wasn’t that an excellent thought, and when Arthur started to squirm a little, Eames had said, sternly, _Keep still, darling. Like I would. I wouldn’t move at all_. It took a delightfully long time, and every second was glorious, and as things progressed, Eames snaked his other arm across Arthur’s chest, pulling him closer, riding his t-shirt up to expose pale skin, dark hair. When shivers started running through Arthur’s frame he quickened the pace, felt Arthur harden further, body sink lower against him, muscles tightening. It was about then Eames became seriously transfixed by the sight of his hand on Arthur’s cock, watched himself shift his hold from a whole hand to thumb and two encircling fingers and back again, brushing his palm over the tip, and something about how it felt made him wonder, vaguely, if this _was_ his cock, though cut. Finally Arthur’s legs started kicking against the sheets, minutely, helplessly, and Eames happily observed the helpless flexion of his toes. 

“Whenever you want, Arthur,” he murmured into the skin of his neck. Arthur cried out as he came, muscles locking, and as his hot spill ran over Eames’ knuckles, Eames had the sudden feeling he was somehow hanging in space, holding Arthur up, stopping them both from falling.

Afterwards Arthur turned over, pulled at Eames’ sweats, his expression dazed, mindless, desperate. Arthur, Eames mused, is a man happiest with his mouth full. Sometimes he is fast and furiously focused, sometimes concerned only with teasing and making Eames wait, but this time, noted Eames, Arthur is adoring Eames’ cock, soothing himself on it, suckling on it, humming with pleasure. Eames thumbed lazily at the ink on his hollowed cheeks, smiled benevolently, closed his eyes, let himself drift so that all he could feel was Arthur working on him. The slow, subterranean ache of an oncoming orgasm had started to make itself known; he made himself relax, fall deeper, to keep it at bay. He didn’t want to come, not yet; he’s always adored this space in-between.

But then two hands vice-gripped his wrists where Eames had been softly holding on to the sheets by his side, and he opened his eyes, surprised. And that was when he realised, too late, that he’d been expertly lulled into a false sense of security. Arthur had taken his mouth off his cock and was looking up at him with an expression of pure devilry. _Fuck,_ thought Eames. _I’ve been played_. He tried to tug his hands away, failed; Arthur’s satisfied expression deepened. Then he leaned down into the crease of Eames’ left thigh, dark head moving as he licked there for a little while before swapping sides to nose into the crease on the other side, and it was on that second push that Arthur purposefully scraped the raw scruff of his jaw along Eames’ inner thigh and Eames jumped, and when Arthur lifted his head up to gaze at Eames again, Eames knew he was fucked. Arthur, the bastard, was _laughing._

He dipped back down, still smiling, the tip of his tongue making the tiniest running movements through the sweat collected along the crease, then angled his head and scraped that bastard stubble right up one side of Eames’ cock. Eames’ back arched—he heard himself choke out an uncharacteristic _Sonofabitch—_ and then Arthur pushed his cock down against his stomach with his jaw and cheek, running his scruff hard up its underside, chafing it mercilessly, then turned and did the same to its other side, and it felt like a million tiny, biting ants

“You _fucker_ ,” Eames hissed, breathing hard, and then Arthur swallowed him down, so wet, so soft, so loving, and the feel of Arthur’s hot tongue on the soreness made Eames come like a goddamned plane crash.

*

And that’s why Arthur is smirking.

Arthur says sometimes, laziness will be your undoing.

Arthur says, I have taken it upon myself to keep you on your toes.

Arthur, says Eames, don’t make stupid excuses for being a sadist, and Arthur says, very seriously, you know I mean it.

It’s all Eames’ fault. He’d played the role of the little boy lost quite outrageously to get his hands on Arthur, the moment he’d figured out that Arthur was a compulsive rescuer (in addition to being a terrifyingly competent control freak with a sideline in near-psychopathy). Reeling him in, in that manner, however, has had its consequences, and quite a lot of the time Eames suspects Arthur still thinks he isn’t able to look after himself. He remembers, sourly, in the midst of their horrendously messy breakup in Montreal, some time after Arthur had calmly explained to Eames why he had to leave, why he had to go to Cobb, Eames had yelled at Arthur that he was the _patron saint of lost causes_ and Arthur had told him, coldly, that if that was the case, maybe he should look at himself, and that’s when Eames had punched the wall. His knuckles still ache, on cold days; Arthur has more than once kissed them, raising his eyes to Eames by way of apology.

But Eames doesn’t mind Arthur keeping him on his toes. Part of him, he admits, rather likes playing the wastrel.

Eames’ cock aches, Arthur smirks at him over the table, and Eames says, darkly, “Are you asking for trouble, Arthur?”

Arthur doesn’t escalate that conversational gambit as expected. Instead, he sits back in his chair, widens his legs, makes a small, knowing smile and bats his eyes flirtatiously, biting his lip. It is a move Eames hasn’t seen before, one Arthur must have learned a long time ago, probably in a place just like this, and the thought of that makes Eames both hunger for him terribly and want to burst into tears.

Instead, he reaches across and steals a handful of fries.

“You love this vest,” he says, looking out through a line of palms to the steady blue sky above Encino. “I’m going to buy you one.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short interlude, featuring BAMF Arthur, because why not

Eames is sprawled over the sofa working through a series of variations of false-cut Sybils. The AC has died, and even with the ceiling fans on full, the air in the house is uncomfortably hot and humid. It’s not helping with the cards. He brushes sweat from his face, wipes the pads of his fingers down the front of his shirt.

Arthur has come to sit next to him. He’s barefoot. The dressing is still on his ankle, curling at little at one side. The hair on his nape is wet. He’s shaved, observes Eames, gratefully. But something is off. Something about the way he’s sitting makes him wonder if Arthur’s about to make an announcement. Bad news? He hopes to god they haven’t been made.

“Eames?”

“Hm?”

“Show me your back?”

So that’s it. Eames tucks the deck by his side, turns, shrugs his shirt down from his shoulders. Arthur puts one hand on his neck, drifts his fingers softly down the multitude of old weals, over the pale criss-crossed lines that run diagonally down his back, over the sickening geometry of recent scar tissue.

“It wasn’t recreational, Arthur,” he says. He’s trying for lightness but it comes out harsh.

“No,” says Arthur. “Doesn’t look as if it was.”

“Last year,” Eames says, shrugging his shirt back on, feeling suddenly vicious because it’s time Arthur _knew_. “Last year, after you left, was bad. Full of bad things. I went blind for two days from an absinthe binge, did you know that was possible? Lost a lot of fights on purpose, ones I started. Stole things, stole things _sloppily_ , from vengeful, well-armed cunts and got away with it. Then there was … I was running this minor con and I’m playing this hail-fellow-well-met Consular tosser to get to my mark but what I’d failed to clock was that he wasn’t just a government official but the kingpin for the whole southern route from Port Qasim to Mombasa, because I hadn’t … I was well off my game, and I was sitting there waiting for this meeting, no-one else in the room, kicking my heels, and there in the corner was this Cézanne, Arthur. Just propped against a wall. Should have been in a vault. Lifted in Zurich a couple of years ago. Must have been collateral. I don’t know if you heard about it. Portrait of an Italian boy, name of Michelangelo de Rosa. Michelangelo. Messenger of god, right? Michelangelo of the fucking rose.”

Eames can’t stop talking, is starting to hate himself for it.

“I went over and turned it round … this, this boy, with all this dark hair curling under his ear and a waistcoat, a red waistcoat, and a white shirt, the way the paint’s handled on it, fuck, the _light_ on it, and he’s got his head in one hand. And his face. His _face_. So, so sad.”

He decides to tell the truth.

“It made me think of you, Arthur. When you’d run away from home. That.”

“Eames,” says Arthur, softly.

"I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear leaving it there.”

“So you stole it.”

“So I stole it. I picked it up and walked out.”

“And they found you.”

"A day later. Surprised it took them so long. I was never going to fence it, just sat looking at it. I was so drunk by then, didn’t hear them walk in. They couldn’t even be bothered to kill me, so they can't have had a clue what they were retrieving. They told me because I took the painting they were going to ... to paint me. They held me down over my kitchen table and whipped me until I passed out.”

He risks a glance at Arthur. His eyes are shut, his face drawn. _Well, you wanted to know_.

“Don’t remember much after that. Pouring a bottle of vodka over myself. Two bottles. Had a fever for a few weeks, threw up every few hours, but on the upside that fixed my little flirtation with brown, and I don’t, I really don’t recommend going cold turkey while suffering a major tissue injury.”

For a while there’s just the clatter of the ceiling fan.

“But you didn’t leave town.” Arthur says, eventually.

“No. Didn’t need to. He dropped off the map about a week later, his whole magical kingdom blew up. Fuck knows what happened. Must have pissed someone off. The route went to another lot who didn’t know me from Adam, so ..” He shrugs. “I like Mombasa.”

Arthur nods. Another long silence.

“Arthur, that painting,” he says, slowly, wistfully. “It was … I can’t even tell you. Just having my hands on it for a few hours. I wish you could have seen it.”

“It’s in Serbia, now,” says Arthur. “But I’m still working on it.”

Hearing that, Eames feels his heart stop. Actually, sickeningly, stop. The room around him reels and recedes, everything goes dark for a second before his heart kicks back sideways, beating wildly, before righting itself. Blood sings in his ears.

“Eames,” Arthur says. “I’m sorry. I hope it wasn’t presumptuous. But yes, I did. Because I don’t like you being hurt. Unless you want it, and I’m the one who’s doing it.” He leans across, kisses Eames’ forehead. “Do your many and varied skills include fixing AC units? I’ve tried. I can’t do a thing with it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The painting btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_in_the_Red_Vest


	5. Chapter 5

Eames couldn’t fix the AC. What he could do was wrestle Arthur onto the bed, hold him down and take him, punishingly, savagely, one hand tight against his throat and three fingers of his other crooked deep inside. Now Arthur’s lying with his head on Eames’ chest, eyes closed, toying with his chest hair, teasing it between two lazy fingers. He’s hot like an oven, practically purring. The sheets are a ruin, kicked to the floor. Outside, distant sirens.

Eames is thoughtful. His left trapezius aches where he’d torn Arthur’s teeth from it. His cock isn’t quite healed after Arthur’s sneak attack two days ago, though he’s rather enjoying the prickle of thwarted need he feels in it, and him.

But he’s having a bit of trouble with the matter of what _this_ is.

Arthur.

There’s always bloody more to him, isn’t there.

Now his wounded ego has been assuaged by the events of the last hour, he’s thinking through how he feels. Part of him is outraged by Arthur’s covert caretaking. It’s presumptuous. It’s insulting. It’s also faintly embarrassing, because a lot of what he’s always felt for Arthur is an overwhelming desire to keep him safe.

But mostly he adores it _._ To be the subject of Arthur’s terrifying and vengeful transnational concern: it’s _giddying_. Being Arthur’s damsel in distress is not a bad role to play, he decides magnanimously, even if it’s not one he’d have picked for himself. He remembers Arthur sharpening a knife in the kitchen earlier that afternoon, leaning over the steel, testing the edge by drawing it aslant over the pad of his thumb, the faintest catch of metal against skin, feels a pulse of drowsy desire.

Nothing of this squares with how Arthur looks right now, so slight, so fragile, a dreamy smile creasing the corners of his mouth. Eames ruffles his hair, rubs a soft thumb over the little blooms of bites and bruises that decorate his shoulders, his neck, his hips.

“So Arthur,” he says, pressing a little harder.

“Mmm,” says Arthur.

“There’s a job in Reykjavik.”

“Nice place,” Arthur says, woozily. “Ducks.”

“Someone’s been a bad boy, and some not-very-nice people from a Landsbanki subsidiary need to find out where he’s put their funds. Quick, but probably not dirty. One level. Dreinhofer’s extracting, Matsuda’s building. They need a point.”

Arthur looks petulant.

“Why are you asking me? I’m on _vacation._ ”

“Arthur, you don’t even know what a vacation _is_.”

Arthur looks speculative. “Dreinhofer’s capable.”

“Very.”

He sighs. “OK, set it up. But I’m not eating whale.”

Eames would answer that with a quip about contractual obligations, were he not too amazed to speak. In the past, negotiations about shared jobs had been ill-tempered campaigns that raged on for days until one of them folded. He kisses Arthur’s temple, leans over to drag the blankets up from the floor to cover them both, listens to Arthur’s breathing turn deep and slow, thinks of him walking the glassy calm of post-crash Borgartún, snow on his hair and eyelashes, the taste of aquavit and ice in his mouth.

*

Eames sleeps for eleven straight hours.

*

“What about my tattoo?” he says, later the next day, their last full day, packing his case, watching Arthur wipe surfaces and coil cables.

“We have a date,” says Arthur. “I want tacos first”.

*

Arthur sets a tray with the kit on the bedside table. Needles, a bottle of isopropyl, cotton swabs, a razor, foam, the blue sharpie, a bowl of hot water, the flannel, the bottle of black ink. Two bottles of water. Next to it, on the bed, is a small pile of improvised restraints: Arthur’s Velcro thigh holster, “but you have ballerina’s thighs, Arthur, are you _sure_ that’ll fit me?” some carabiners, paracord, dishcloths, duct tape. He doesn’t think they’ll all be needed. He considers, leans down and pulls at the cuff of his left jeans leg, takes off the ankle holster where his knife lives, adds holster and knife to the pile. Eames examines it, says it’s all lovely, very inventive, but his hand-tooled set of cuffs from Barcelona are sorely missed and Arthur says, you are the worst of all snobs. Get over yourself, Eames.

Arthur asks Eames if he’ll be able to draw the design on himself, watches as Eames shifts himself to test the position, says he can, easily. Arthur wants to arrange him like a doll, tonight, wants to push and pull him about. He wants a lot of things; is not sure yet whether he’ll be able to have them all. It’s a question of playing it by ear.

*

Arthur has many kinks, but there are many kinks Arthur doesn’t have.

Some of those he understands in principle, though they don’t work for him at all (like verbal humiliation, a hard limit for Arthur courtesy of his childhood). Others bewilder him because he can’t imagine why anyone would find them hot. Shaving? That’s always been in the first category. He gets why people might like it, but the idea hasn’t ever done anything for him.

But now? _Huh_. The first sweep of his razor triggers a long, helpless shiver down Eames’ thigh. Arthur, entranced, watches it travel the length of his leg right to the tip of his toes, and the skin revealed by the razor’s track is smooth and golden and glowing in the lamplight. Another stroke, another shiver, a short, gruff exhale from Eames, and Arthur is definitely revisiting his feelings on shaving. He rinses the razor, replaces it on the tray, wipes away the foam and hair, runs a finger down the cleared tract of skin, wipes it with a wet flannel, dries it with a towel.

“I rather liked that,” says Eames.

“I want to see,” says Arthur, handing Eames the pen. And he does. He watches so closely he witnesses the minute bleed of the ink into the fine creases of his skin. _Oh_ , he thinks, surprised, ready to add _Eames drawing on himself_ to his list of new kinks. But, on further consideration, he realizes he’s not discovering anything new. This is entirely situational. The air in here is crackling with so much sexual tension that Eames could do anything right now and it would work for him. Pick up a cup. Sneeze. Fold sheets. “When you’re done with that, I’m going to fuck you,” he says, evenly.

“I would like that, Arthur,” says Eames as he draws.

*

When Arthur’s in a submissive mood, he’s pliant and sweetly responsive. When he’s not in that mood, he’s a highly demanding top. He’s pushy, expectant, impatient, always taking a little more than you think you can give until you realise you can give it after all. That’s what Eames has learned. Eames also thinks that being fucked by Arthur is very much like working with him: in fact, he can count off the reasons on his fingers. One, because you know you’re in safe hands; two, because you know he’ll take care of you; three, because it will be the best, absolutely the best you’ve ever had; four — and this is important — you have to realise that Arthur cannot help his natural tendency to test things to destruction. He’d explained this analogy to Arthur over too-many tequilas in a 5th arrondissement bar two years ago, and Arthur, loose-cuffed and more than a little drunk, wearing a dark green Charvet shirt Eames had stolen for him on the Place Vendôme that morning, had sat and listened patiently. When he’d finished his explanation, Arthur had ducked his head, said, _thank you Mister Eames, I sincerely appreciate the compliment,_ taken him back to their hotel and pushed him further than he had ever done before.

Eames is loving the switchback they’re riding at the moment, the post-job collision of all their sexual collusions, the way they’re handing each other control, pushing it back and forth and back again. It’s a Grand Slam and a proper rollercoaster and it makes every part of him sing.

Arthur wants to fuck him, he knows, for a number of reasons, right now. Some are selfish, some are practical. Arthur knows the process of tattooing his thigh is going to drive him absolutely wild, and he has clearly decided Eames will need to come at least once before he’ll be able to cope with all that attention. Eames can’t fault his reasoning.

*

“Any requests?” says Arthur.

“Whatever you want,” says Eames, which is the right answer, and Arthur is on him like a wolf. Arthur can’t remember the last time he was so purely, simply desperate. It’s eight months of no Eames, it’s Cobb’s betrayal, it’s the triumph of inception, it’s the certainty of this, the ink, a final, unshakeable claim. All of it, all at once.

He bites hard enough at Eames’ ridiculous lips to make Eames squeal, taste of copper. He rakes his nails down his sides, feels Eames’ muscles lock and shift under his skin; pulls at his nipples, twists them until Eames cries out, tips him onto his knees, runs his tongue down the fretwork of lines on his back—despite Arthur’s initial misgivings, this seems to work for Eames—cups him between his legs a little too tightly, for a little too long, then spreads him and presses his tongue against the sweet furl of his ass, opening him up, tasting Eames, all of Eames—so alive, so real—and Arthur hears himself whine, which might be the wrong way round, but _fuck_ he wants _in._ His hands, he notes with surprise, are shaking when he reaches for the lube. And when he lines up and slowly, inexorably squeezes himself in, hearing Eames groan, feeling how tense he is, the helpless, gripping clenches as he tries to relax and fails, he’s not sure if what he’s feeling is love or murder.

When Eames is ready he starts to move.

 _“Arthur,”_ Eames rasps, after a while.

Arthur ignores him.

Eames says it again, more urgently.

Arthur is concentrating. He’s angling himself to give Eames almost, but not quite what he needs. He can feel Eames’ growing frustration in the way he’s pushing back against him, moving himself about, trying to encourage Arthur to fuck him exactly right. Arthur’s obliviousness to his needs, the obvious fact that Arthur’s specifically denying him what he wants—that is making him even more desperate. Arthur circles his chest with his arms, hoists him up onto his knees, bites at his shoulder, drives up into him, watches helpless runnels of pre-come drip onto the sheets.

He leans in, whispers, “but I didn’t say you couldn’t touch yourself.”

That’s a complicated sentence for Eames to get his head round in the state he’s currently in; he shakes his head as he puzzles it out. Then he brings a hand eagerly up to his cock and Arthur is watching this avidly, because no matter how wet he’s made himself, Eames’ cock still isn’t healed, and Eames has clearly forgotten. All Arthur can think about is seeing the precise moment he remembers.

It only takes one stroke: he yelps, pulls his hand away, stung, then grips himself again, pressing and rubbing under his head with finger and thumb.

“So sore,” says Arthur. Eames nods, breathing hard through his open mouth.

“Do it again,” says Arthur.

Eames, trembling, obeys. The way it wakes the hundreds of tiny scruff-pricks on his skin makes him lurch forward with a rough cry that makes Arthur weak in his bones. “Don’t stop,” says Arthur. “Keep hurting yourself.” He tips Eames over onto the bed again, slams in hard exactly where Eames has wanted him, and does it again, and again, and then Eames is coming, impossibly tight around him, and Arthur is too.

They fall to one side, and after a while, both of them are laughing.

 _Fuck_ , says Eames.

Yeah, says Arthur.

"I’m so fucked," says Eames. "I feel shipwrecked. I might even be dead. You can do what you want to me now. I won’t even notice.”

“I just,” says Arthur, pulling out, turning Eames over, and reaching for the flannel to clean them both up, “want you to take a moment, drink some water.”

“I can do that.”

Arthur examines the little blue fish. A blurred smudge of ink has spread out from its tail. He wipes carefully around it, around Eames’ thighs, turning the flannel in his hands, gently squeezing it around Eames’ cock to soothe it, Eames has downed his bottle of spring water, is sitting very quietly.

“You ok?”

“I’m excellent, Arthur, thank you for asking.”

“I need to ask you some questions now. They’re relevant and important, so you need to listen to me.”

“Right-ho. Fire away.”

“Will you talk me through what’s going on for you, when we do this?”

“Naturally,” he says.

“Also, we’ve managed to smudge your drawing. I like that. I want to tattoo that smear into your skin as well. Does that work for you?”

“God yes. Genius.”

Arthur slips the flannel back into the bowl.

“And there’s this. Eames, if this goes the way we both think it will, do you want to push it forward into a scene?”

“Arthur,” says Eames. “I’m just going to keep saying yes, you know that.”

“OK. But.” Arthur pauses. “Tell me you’ll safeword out, if you need to.”

Eames feels a flutter of nerves in his stomach. Arthur hasn’t asked him this for a very, very long time.

“I will. I promise. You know me. I’m extremely risk-aware.”

Arthur snorts.

“Let’s get you set up. Show me how you want to be.”

How Eames wants to be, it turns out, is propped up on a stack of pillows against the head of the bed, his left leg crooked out at the knee to expose his thigh, his foot resting near his other knee.

“That works for me,” Arthur says. “I’ll want your hands pinned, so while I do this, choose how.”

The thigh holster works as Arthur hoped it would. He wraps it around Eames’ calf just under his knee, runs a double line of paracord from it, then slips to the floor to secure it to the front outside leg of the bed. Eames wriggles happily as he reemerges, testing the hold. He turns his head to watch Arthur tie his wrists to the top of the bed rail each side of his head, flexes his fingers, checks the give.

“How’s that?”

“Perfect.”

“I’m glad,” says Arthur, pressing a short, sweet kiss to his lips. “I’m going to start now. OK? I’ll do my best to live up to your expectations.”

“I always hope,” says Eames, loftily, “you might exceed them.”

*

The first dip of the inked needle into Eames’ thigh is a surprise: the tiny _snick_ as the point pushes in, the way the ink is caught beneath the surface and held there. He knows the puncture must be shallow, so he keeps it shallow, as much as he longs to see blood. Eames’ cock lies soft and languid next to his cheek. With the first puncture he hears Eames make a soft, satisfied noise. He moves the needle a millimeter to the side, presses in again, and Eames says, “Oh, Arthur,” almost reverently.

Everything has turned sharp, slow and clear for Arthur, now. He’s experiencing the peculiarly altered perception that accompanies a certain form of careful, concentrated sadism, but which he’s also experienced after being shot at, and in the presence of others’ deaths. Births, too. He’s seen fewer of those. He picks up more ink on the needle’s tip, presses in once again. It’s easier than he thought. It’s also harder than he thought. Each new dot of ink tugs at him, for what is this, really, other than proof of claim? He’s stitching his heart to Eames, doing this. He’s tying them together in this beautiful, hushed…

“Eames, you’re supposed to be talking to me,”

“Sorry, Arthur. It’s so good. The most relaxing thing in the world. I always fall asleep in tattoo parlors. I’m just drifting, love.”

He doesn’t say any more, and Arthur lets it slide for a while.

About ten minutes in he hears Eames whisper, _Arthur_ , and Arthur says, _I know_ , because Eames’ breathing has been getting harsher for a while, now, and his cock is starting to stir.

A little while later, as Arthur is filling in the blue smudge of the tail, Eames starts to jump fractionally, tug at the restraints every time the needle goes in. It’s not the pain; it’s what the pain is doing to him. He’s hard again, and—bless him—he’s doing his best to tell Arthur what he’s thinking, as promised. He is gratifyingly incoherent.

“Arthur I love this, I love this, your face, the look on it when you’re concentrating so hard … what you’re doing, it’s never going to go away, it’s going to be there on me forever … all art should hurt like this, it was the best … idea, you always have the best ideas, you’re so careful, look at you, god, Arthur…it should always hurt like this...”

Arthur’s smiling as he listens to Eames ramble, wiping excess ink away, returning again and again to the line. He keeps working. He’s nearly finished. Eames is trembling. His cock is iron-hard now, twitches helplessly with every pass of Arthur’s needle. Arthur not-quite-accidentally bumps against it, gets a smear of precome across his cheek. He looks up at Eames, whose face wears an expression that’s somehow both amused and wracked with unbridled want. Arthur looks right at him, wipes his cheek clean with one finger, slips it into his mouth.

 _Arthur_ , says Eames, low and warningly, hips bucking up.

Arthur gets back to work. When he finishes the tattoo, he lays his hands on Eames’ thighs, judging his tension, then leans over and sips precome from the tip of Eames’ cock, delicately drinks from it, and Eames kicks out, apparently appalled. “Arthur!” he shouts, and it’s a warning Arthur’s heeding. Another touch, and Eames is going to come, and that’s not happening yet— 

He takes the bottle of isopropyl alcohol from the tray, pours a little of it into a wide cotton swab, cleans the tattoo.

Eames is a feast of little panting moans. He’s so close, and Arthur is careful, now, not to touch him anywhere. He’s going to let him bask in it for a while.

“How is it? Are you ok?” he says.

Eames can’t even manage to look cross.

“I’m close,” he says, eyes tight closed.

“I know. You look beautiful. It’s done. Can you see it?”

Eames blinks, squints. “Sort of?” he says.

Arthur tapes a dressing to his thigh. It is deeply gratifying to do this, considering. Eames is shaking uncontrollably as he does it.

Arthur says, delightedly, “Oh, Eames. You _are_ close.”

“Arthur, _please_ ,” Eames whines, in the low voice that is one of the most effective in his arsenal, but Arthur is untouchable, Arthur is high and flying now, is holding all the complicated ways this could pan out firmly in his hands, and is already way past his go/no go.

He shifts up the bed, close to Eames, spreads his fingers over his jaw, makes sure Eames’ eyes are on his.

“I’m going to escalate things,” he says. “Considerably. Unless you ask me to stop. We can stop here, if you want.”

“You're fucking joking me,” says Eames.

“You have to be sure,” says Arthur.

“Keep going, for the love of god.”

“Do you mean that?” says Arthur.

“Please Arthur, anything, anything, _please_ ,”

“Look at me, then. Keep your eyes on me.”

When Arthur picks up the bottle of isopropyl Eames eyes’ go wide and he freezes, like he can’t believe Arthur is considering this, though Arthur also sees the realisation dawn upon him that Arthur has been planning this, had started the necessary fucking groundwork days ago when he chose not to shave, and has already gone through every fucking permutation leading to this moment, and that all of it was absolutely inevitable. He looks at Arthur beseechingly, watches him reach forward to carefully protect the very tip of Eames’ cock with three fingers—then with the other hand, he upends the bottle and tips alcohol all down the shaft.

Eames comes, and as he does, quite reasonably, he screams.

*

Eames has not played this game before. Arthur has, twice. He knows what it is like; the shock of jumping into a winter ocean, only it’s not cold, it’s beyond hot, it burns like the _sun_ , and it’s fucking agonizing. Arthur is quickly by Eames’ side, not touching him, just speaking to him, low, insistently, reminding him of his presence, because pain like this takes _everything_ and he mustn’t feel alone for a moment.

“ _Arthur_ ,” Eames cries out, in an appeal so helpless and plaintive it’s as if Arthur had nothing to do with what’s just happened.

“ _Arthur!_ ”

“I know it hurts,” Arthur says. “And it’s going to get worse.”

Eames tries in vain to rip his hands free of the restraints, thrashes about, his free leg kicking wildly, and he’s making this low noise of pain interspersed with curses, biting his lip so hard he’s broken the skin, and the sight would break Arthur’s heart were it not the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. “You can take it,” he says, brushing Eames’ hair back from his brow. “You can take this, I know you can.”

*

Eames reminds himself to never again forget, as Arthur upends the bottle, that Arthur is a _fucking psycho_.

After Arthur upends the bottle, he thinks he’s going to die.

It’s only when he hears his voice, and latches onto it, a thin thread connecting him to the other side of what this is, he trusts that he won’t. It took only a few seconds after the initial searing agony for him to try all the tricks he knows to master the pain, move it into that place where it works for him, not against him, but in a few seconds more he knows that none of them will work. It’s too much, far, far too much, and it's getting worse, and he can’t control himself. He’s caught at the knee, by his hands; he rocks forward, then back, plants his feet flat and pushes himself up, falls back, hears himself make noises that remind him so much of that horror in Mombasa that for a while he’s sure he’s back there, spread out on the table, and maybe Arthur can rescue him this time, before it’s too late, maybe this time—and he feels tears running down his face, and then, distantly, hears Arthur’s voice, feels Arthur’s hand on his brow, and Arthur’s saying, _Eames, you can safeword_. _You can safeword out, listen to me, if you need to, just say it,_ and and to his own amazement, he feels himself shake his head, whisper _no_.

*

Three minutes and thirty six seconds later, Eames gives up. He stops fighting. His chest is heaving, his fingers limp (Arthur’s glad of the double folded dishcloth he’d curled between cord and skin), his limbs slack, and his eyes lost. He’s so deep, deeper than Arthur has ever seen him. His chest is soaked with sweat and tears, there’s blood running down his chin from the deep bite in his lower lip. He looks absolutely flayed, and Arthur knows that every defence Eames has ever built around himself is blown wide open.

 _Sssh,_ he says, _it’s over, you were amazing, you were amazing, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m so proud of you. I love you, Eames. I love you._ He pours the entire bowl of tepid, soapy water over a hand held low above Eames’ groin, careful to avoiding the dressing on the new tattoo. The bed will be soaked for days after they’re gone.

Eames lets out a moan of relief as the water hits.

“You’re going to need more of that,” Arthur says. “Come on, let’s get you fixed.”

Arthur knows the aftermath of an ordeal like this feels like being reborn. He cuts the cords. Eames’ arms fall deadweight. He pulls Eames’ left arm over his shoulders, coaxes him onto his feet, walks him unsteadily to the bathroom, taking nearly all of his weight. Sits him on the edge of the bath, swings him round so his legs are inside it, turns on the coiled shower attachment, parts Eames’ legs and runs a stream of cool water over his cock and balls. Eames jerks and groans.

After a while, Eames revives. He’s groggy, but lucid.

He’s shaking his head in wonderment.

“I can’t believe you did that to me,” he whispers, before dabbing at his lip with his thumb, pulling it away and examining the stain.

“I did,” says Arthur. “It was intense.”

Eames lets out a short, faintly hysterical laugh.

“It _was_ intense,” he agrees. “One for my future memoirs.”

“Don’t you dare write a memoir,” says Arthur. “What will people think of me?”

Eames is pathetically grateful for the stream of cool water that is taking the pain away, but is desperately in need of Arthur, and there’s not enough Arthur touching him. He turns, buries his face in Arthur’s shoulder. “I’m ok,” he croaks.

“You are ok, Eames, you really are. You did so well.”

“I need …”

Eames is bewildered by how he is feeling. He’s dizzy and light-headed, but wholly grounded. He feels as tough and ancient as desert rocks, and at the same time totally new, hopelessly weak and frail.

“Tell me, and you can have it. Whatever you need.”

“I need you, Arthur,” says Eames, and he bursts into tears.

It’s that simple.  
Perhaps it always was.

“You have me, Eames. Always. I’m not leaving you. Unless you ask me to, I’m not ever leaving you. Never,” says Arthur.

He knows Eames understands he doesn’t mean this literally: he’s pushing Delta to SEA-TAC in the morning, Arthur is heading to Ontario. They’ll meet up in Iceland in twelve days, and Arthur is going to hate every second of the space in between. He is dizzy with emotion; part of it is drop, he knows, but most of it is not. It’s love. That’s all. That’s all it is. He sits on the edge of the bath, under too-sharp light, Eames sobbing against his shoulder, and he knows, with utter certainty, that he will sit there, if Eames requires him to, until the very end of days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the comments and kudos, I have loved writing this so much.


End file.
